POETRY.
ONLY A CORRESPONDENT.
A GRAVE in the desert, a word in the papers : is that
All ? Is that all ?
No shrine which a pilgrim may find, no memorial whereat Those who loved him may call On his name, and thank God their beloved lived, and if dead Died for the pledge Of England ; for love of the needy and sorely bested On the desert's deadly edge.
Not for him the medal, praise, and promotion and fame, The danger alone; And now hot death at a stroke, and never a star to his name To go with his memory home.
Never an honour, a star, a cross, instead of the living man ; Nothing to say How true and swift to his post as ever a soldier can, Historian of fight and fray, He stood 'mid the smoke of the guns, and rode through the blinding sand, Never behind ; Scoffed at more than praised, too ready to understand Whatever might be divined, Yet blowing the trumpets of fame, not for himself, but for you, Generals all Seizing out of the clamour, while the dust and the bullets flew, Names of the brave that fall ; Names of the great that triumph, records to fire the. blood, Never forgot;
Taken out of the heart of the battle, from desert, and kraal, and flood,
Wherever the fight was hot.
And for all recompense, when something falls to each trooper's share,
Twenty lines or so
In his journal, but never a tribute or word of honour where Your rolls of glory go.
A grave in the desert, a word in the papers : is that All It is scant, Yet enough to light the torch of a good example at ; What more does an Englishman want ?
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